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New technologies and strategies for fuel cells and hydrogen technologies in the phase of recycling and dismantling

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HYTECHCYCLING (New technologies and strategies for fuel cells and hydrogen technologies in the phase of recycling and dismantling)

Reporting period: 2017-11-01 to 2019-04-30

A Horizon 2020 objective looks for a clean future, while the society advance. Under this scope, it is clear that our society needs a clean way to produce the energy that it needs. The technological options are wide and diverse, and among them, the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen technologies are shown as a solution due to their capacity to adapt to different requirements, their capacity to produce energy and their capacity to serve as other renewable resources integration.
Although FCH are a reality, their market is far away to be completed. A lot of environmental and cost related issues can appear during the life of the FCH technology, regarding the materials that form it and the different end of life possibilities. Until these problems are not solved, the real introduction of the FCH technologies will not happen.
The main goal of the project is to deliver reference documentation and studies about existing and new recycling and dismantling technologies and strategies applied to FCH technologies, paving the way for future demonstration actions and advances in roadmaps and regulations.
These reference documentation created during the project development, linked with the dissemination of the results have set the first step towards a sustainable EoL of the FCH technologies, promoting the reuse and recycling, and in a final stage, promoting the circular economy in FCH technologies.
During the second half part of the project, HYTECHCYCLING consortium has set the novel technologies and strategies that are suitable for the future of the FCH technologies. Moreover, specific events as a workshop or demonstrative events have been organized in order to bring stakeholders near to the real situation of the dismantling and recycling of FCH nowadays.

Additionally, to this work, a reference document containing recommendations and guidelines for each stakeholder involved in the life of a FCH technology has been developed. A complete LCA considered the strategies set in the project and a business model and an implementation roadmap has been set, considering that there is no need on reinventing the wheel in the FCH waste management.

All the publishable results will be available at the webpage of the project (www.hytechcycling.eu)
This project has set a good list of reference documentation for the EoL of the FCH technologies. Moreover, the establishment of a timeline for the re-adaptation of the recycling centers, and for the establishment of a more complex Extended Producers Responsibility scheme has been set. The business model has also shown how to cover recycling and how to approach it from an economic point of view.

In addition, the results obtained in this project around the Life Cycle Assessment and the recycling of the FCH technologies and also the philosophy will provide a reference point for future developments in the field of LCAs.